After more than five years of dating, Sheldon (Jim Parsons, left) and Amy (Mayim Bialik, right) spend their first night together, on The Big Bang Theory.
(Photo: Michael Yarish/CBS)

Update December 14, 2016: It’s been a year since Sheldon (Jim Parsons) gave Amy (Mayim Bialik) what she really wanted for her birthday on The Big Bang Theory: He made love to her. He also promised to do so every year on her birthday. So this Thursday night, when the show celebrates Amy’s birthday again — will Sheldon keep his promise?

“He is coming around, very slowly as he does,” showrunner Steve Molaro told TV Line. “He still struggles with physical intimacy, but he doesn’t dislike it. And he loves Amy.”

Original story published January 7, 2016: Amy and Sheldon having sex on The Big Bang Theory was a milestone for the show. The couple had been together for years without being intimate, exchanging the occasional kiss, while Amy longed for more. The episode aired just before the holiday break. Tonight, The Big Bang Theory returns with a new episode, so we turned to Mayim Bialik, who plays Amy, for her take on how that event might change the dynamic of the series.

Balik unabashedly has announced that she liked the relationship the way it was. In a blog on groknation.com, she talks about her upbringing and how her parents instilled in her the idea that sex was for marriage, which was why she was good with Amy and Sheldon practicing celibacy. Their relationship reflected her values.

But she was able to accept the change with equanimity because when the writers decided it was time for Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Amy to become intimate, they didn’t write it in a lascivious way, but rather it shows the intimacy between the two characters, who have come to love each other over a long period of time.

“I commend our writers and producers for making this episode so gentle and so delicate and so well-thought-out,” Bialik wrote. “It’s not ‘just sex’ for Amy and Sheldon. It’s the kind of kissing and loving that mommies and daddies do, as Sheldon says. We don’t belabor the ‘how was it?’ aspects of intercourse. We let those moments be private.”

Bialik admits to being a late bloomer when it came to intimacy in real life, and she says she has no regrets. In fact, she says that she would live that aspect of her life the same way if she had to do it all over again.

“I hope that Amy and Sheldon’s intimacy can be inspiring to those of you who are late bloomers, and encouraging for those of you who have yet to be intimate,” Bialik writes. “And for those of you who are past the stage of thinking about the first time you were intimate, I hope this episode reminded you of the tenderness and the closeness and the possibility we all once had. If we are lucky, we get many chances to have that closeness even as grown-ups. And it can still be very sweet.”

As to whether or not Sheldon and Amy had great sex, Bialik says that isn’t important. It wasn’t what the episode was about.

“It’s actually not what the first time you have sex is about either, for either person,” she says. “Anyone who has waited a long time to have sex will tell you that once you have decided to have sex for the first time with someone you love and are committed to in a way that a longer term commitment facilitates, it’s a heavy moment. It’s not about making it like a scene from Fifty Shades of Grey at all.”

So what’s next for the couple, who have taken their relationship to the next level—although, Sheldon did say he felt coitus once a year was sufficient?

“I honestly will be happy to go back to all of the kinds of things we did before the breakup—funny scenes, touching scenes, scenes with the whole gang,” Bialik told CBS, which is what happens on tonight’s episode. “I don’t think that every episode will be about a monumental relationship move, and I’m grateful for that. Our show tends to be about the day-to-day lives of these unusual people rather than monumental events in their relationships. And we like it that way!”

On tonight’s episode, Penny (Kaley Cuoco) gets more than she bargained for when Leonard (Johnny Galecki) agrees to meet with a psychiatrist (Jane Kaczmarek) on her behalf. Also, Sheldon and Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar) collaborate on an astronomical discovery, and Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and Bernadette (Melissa Rauch) can’t believe what they are feeling after Stuart (Kevin Sussman) moves out.